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| Evaluating the Relative Effects of Socially Mediated Consequences and Extending the Utility of Sociability Assessments |
| Sunday, May 25, 2025 |
| 12:00 PM–12:50 PM |
| Marriott Marquis, M4 Level, Capitol & Congress |
| Area: DDA; Domain: Applied Research |
| Chair: Janelle Kirstie Bacotti (University of Miami) |
| CE Instructor: Janelle Kirstie Bacotti, Ph.D. |
| Abstract: Prior researchers have assessed social interactions and leisure items to determine their relative effects on response rates, acquisition, severe behavior, and overall treatment outcomes. The current symposium will include three presentations that involve extending the utility of sociability assessments (Morris & Vollmer, 2021) and the effects of socially mediated consequences on responding under a progressive ratio schedule. The first study identified the proportion of sociability assessments during which severe behavior occurred and retrospectively compared sociability assessment and functional analysis outcomes with children on the autism spectrum. The second study involved examining the social interactions between feeding therapists and children receiving behavioral feeding services by completing sociability assessments throughout treatment. The third study evaluated a behavioral economic measure of sensitivity to social reinforcement with children with and without disabilities and compared responding when delivering social interactions versus leisure items using a progressive ratio schedule. All presenters will describe their study procedures, findings, contributions, and future research directions. |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
| Keyword(s): behavioral economics, functional analysis, sociability, social reward |
| Target Audience: Attendees should be familiar with social interaction preference assessments, functional analyses, a general understanding of behavioral economics, and a general understanding of pediatric feeding disorders. |
Learning Objectives: 1. identify the relevance of measuring severe behavior during sociability assessments.
2. identify the relevance of measuring the function of social interactions while children receive behavioral feeding services.
3. identify the relative effects of social interactions and leisure stimuli on responding under progressive ratio schedules across diagnostic groups. |
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| A Retrospective Evaluation of Sociability Assessment and Functional Analysis Outcomes |
| GRACE SIGWANZ (University of Miami), Yanerys Leon (University of Miami), Janelle Kirstie Bacotti (University of Miami), Alexandra Ramirez (University of Miami), Gabriela Salazar (University of Miami), Joanne Li (University of Miami) |
| Abstract: Sociability assessments (SA) can be used to identify the function of social interactions (i.e., reinforcing, neutral, aversive) among children on the autism spectrum (Morris & Vollmer, 2021). More than 40% of children diagnosed on the autism spectrum engage in challenging behavior (Edelson, 2021) and previous researchers have shown that social positive reinforcement in the form of adult attention accounts for 14.5% of identified functions of problem behavior across 2,314 outcomes (Melanson & Fahmie, 2023). To date, there are no published studies that report the occurrence of problem behavior during SA. The purpose of this study was to a) report on the proportion of SA during which participants exhibited problem behavior and b) conduct a preliminary analysis of SA and functional analysis outcomes by retrospectively comparing the results for participants who experienced both assessments. In addition to molar outcome measures, we completed analyses to examine the extent to which therapist behavior (i.e., social or avoidant switches; the presence or absence of social interactions) was correlated with problem behavior during the SA. We discuss implications of measuring problem behavior during sociability assessments on the selection of functional analysis test conditions, potential functions of problem behavior, and initial treatment selection. |
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| Examining Social Interactions for Children Undergoing Behavioral Feeding Therapy |
| LAURA BEATRIZ DEZAYAS (University of Florida), Ronald J. Clark (University of Florida), Angie Van Arsdale (University of Florida), Nicole Perrino (University of Florida, Florida Autism Center), Vivian F Ibanez (University of Florida), Timothy R. Vollmer (University of Florida) |
| Abstract: Approximately 25-35% of typically developing children and up to 80-90% of children with autism (ASD) may experience persistent feeding difficulties. Intervention based on applied behavior analysis and in the context of multidisciplinary care has been highly successful for the treatment of pediatric feeding disorders (Sharp et al., 2017). However, one question that remains is the degree to which participation in this type of treatment impacts a child’s social interactions with their feeding therapists. Recently, sociability testing has been shown to be effective in assessing whether social interactions function as reinforcing, neutral, or aversive stimuli (Morris & Vollmer, 2020). Therefore, the current study extends the literature by examining the social interactions between children with feeding disorders and their feeding therapists throughout their clinical course of treatment. Results of this study demonstrated that the majority of participants found social interactions with their therapists to be reinforcing before the implementation of their feeding intervention, and these findings did not change following the feeding intervention. These outcomes have implications for using sociability testing as one angle from which researchers can evaluate the social validity of behavior-analytic feeding treatment. |
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Quantifying the Relative Reinforcing Efficacy of Social Versus Leisure Stimuli for Children With Autism |
| PIERCE TAYLOR (Louisiana State University), Samuel L Morris (Louisiana State University), Nathan Call (Marcus Autism Center), Joanna Lomas Mevers (Marcus Autism Center) |
| Abstract: Researchers have hypothesized that one behavioral mechanism related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could be differences in the extent to which social interactions are experienced as sufficiently reinforcing (Chevallier et al., 2012). This study evaluated a behavioral economic measure of sensitivity to social reinforcement in 30 autistic children, 19 children with developmental disabilities, and 19 neurotypical children between the ages of 3 and 12 years old. Participants worked for 30 s of access to social interactions with a novel adult or a leisure item across separate sessions. Each consequence was delivered according to a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement in which the number of work responses required increased across trials. A high degree of heterogeneity in the absolute and relative value of social interaction was observed within each diagnostic group. Although social interactions were more reinforcing than leisure stimuli for several autistic participants, comparisons across diagnostic groups indicate that the relative reinforcing efficacy for social interaction was lower for autistic participants compared to neurotypical participants, but not participants with developmental disabilities. |
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